RIVERHEAD, N.Y. // A New York police recruit was convicted Monday of conspiring to hire someone to murder his girlfriend, who stood by him throughout the trial and defied a protective order that he not see her.

Kabeer Din, 22, hung his head as he heard the verdict in Suffolk County Court. His sister sobbed as he was led from the courtroom in handcuffs.

Din, a former Baltimore police officer, faces eight years and four months to 25 years in prison.

He was arrested last summer after meeting with a New York undercover officer, who he thought was a hit man, to discuss killing Sherry Nohar for $3,000. Din made a written confession to plotting to have the 24-year-old woman killed, and he was recorded discussing the scheme, prosecutors said.

During the trial, Nohar defended the man she continued to call her boyfriend, testifying in his defense and saying she was working to have him vindicated. Despite a court-imposed order of protection, she continued to see him, she testified.

But on Monday, as the verdict was read, Nohar was nowhere to be seen. Days earlier, as prosecutors played audio and video recordings of Din talking about the plot to kill her, she giggled.

Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Scileppi said it was a "straightforward case."

"In the end," he said, "the jury listened and applied the test of common sense."

Scileppi has said Din wanted Nohar killed because she didn't want to marry him and he feared she would report to the police department something that would be damaging to him.

On cross-examination, Nohar conceded the couple had been fighting, primarily because he was not permitted to accompany her to a family wedding, in the days before Din's arrest on July 31. She also admitted saying Din was possessive.

Defense attorney Craig Purcell told the judge Monday that Din accepts responsibility for his actions and blames nobody but himself for "ruining his life."

At trial, Purcell had argued that Din was the victim of police entrapment, and he contended the taped discussions showed Din hesitating.